Monday, 29 April 2013

Out This Week - 29th April 2013

Guided By Voices - Flunky Minnows

Following eight years of inactivity by alternative legends Guided By Voices, they've now managed to release four albums in two years. Prolific by anyone's standards. Following last year's trio comes new offering 'English Little League' which contains a whopping seventeen tracks, including the typically melodic guitar-pop of single 'Flunky Minnows'.

They may not be the most cheerful band going, but The Earth And Everything In It can turn subjects like fear and uncertainty into very evocative and powerful songs. This week they release their album 'We Wander At Night' and you can probably expect more grandiose misery on an epic scale, much like the undeniably atmospheric recent single 'Future Fears'.

'We Wander At Night' will be available to stream and buy on April 30th from Bandcamp

!!! - Syld

Livening things up somewhat, those US East-Coasters with the ridiculous name are back with a new album this week too. !!! (it's pronounced "chk chk chk" in case you didn't know) release their fifth full-length 'Thr!!!er' which contains plenty of their dancefloor oriented disco-punk experimenting. Having a penchant for odd names, they've called this single 'Slyd' (pronounced "slide").

These guys don't mess around. LA band Hands only formed last year and have made an incredibly accomplished start, no dodgy bedroom demos here. This week sees them put out debut album 'Synesthesia' which is an eclectic mix of electro-pop, indie and a few other bits and bobs that they feel like chucking in to add extra layers to their songs. Check out 'Trouble' for a prime example.

Hurrah! It was back in 2010 that The Sound Of Confusion started banging on about this amazing new pop starlet from Norway, we even had her in our tips for 2011 list. Since then not much has happened. A couple of female popstars we've tipped since have done reasonably well (Charlie XCX, Alex Winston) and others we're still waiting on (Yadi, The Good Natured), but my personal favourite was Mr Little Jeans. Following a couple of sensational tracks in 'Angel' and 'Faking Gold', word was that she'd moved across the Atlantic to get working on an album. Three years on from first hearing her it could finally be on the way. Recent single 'Runaway' was good, but was a little too close to the music of other artists than we'd hoped. Now we get 'Oh Sailor', and it's a bloody cracking pop song! Featuring the Silverlake Conservatory of Music Youth Chorale adding some gorgeously sweet backing, this is far closer to what we were hoping for. Maybe 2013 will have an amazing new popstar after all. Come on public, she's better than the crap you're buying at the moment by miles! Make it happen!